The concept of collaboration selling is not a new one, but it wasn’t until recently that it started getting the attention that many business owners felt it deserved. Using social media for sales allows businesses to keep up with emerging trends in business, trends which have rendered online marketing more of an exact science than it was before the advent of social media.
With respect to collaborative selling, there is no greater set of tools than the host of social media platforms which have found their way into mainstream. Let’s have a look at some of the social media platforms and applications that you can use to improve sales collaboration in your business:
Chatter
Too often, associates confuse emails from one colleague with those from the next. Miscommunication in the workplace is one of the leading causes of missed opportunity in the U.S each year. Use Chatter. All associates belonging to a particular group can see posts that their colleagues contribute.
For example, one of your field reps can report back to the office on his movements and no one is kept out of the loop. This type of communication allows important information to be streamlined quickly and efficiently, leading to more productivity and a bigger bottom line.
Google Plus
Individuals learn more efficiently when they can see their presenter. This is because video is more personal. Video allows users to express empathy more completely than they can over the phone, using body language to highlight key points in the conversation.
Have your employees sign up for an account with Google Plus and encourage the use of video hangouts so that they communicate with your sales reps in the field like they were right there in the office. Webinars are an integral part of collaboration sales and they should be utilized whenever possible.
LinkedIn
LinkedIn is still a relatively young addition to the world of social media, but the implications that it bears on collaboration sales are beginning to mature. Encouraging employees to set up profiles on LinkedIn not only makes them available to customers, but to other associates.
Associates can search for each other by name and request a connection, affording them access to the profiles of all the employees with whom that particular associate had connected. Common interests among employees often leads to camaraderie and cooperation with respect to work-related project.